China Mobile TD-SCDMA Handset R&D Fund Bears Fruit
Sina Tech, 12/17/09
China Mobile (NYSE: CHL; 0941.HK) unveiled 11 heavily-customized TD-SCDMA handsets from 9 brands this afternoon, including Dopod, Motorola, Huawei, ZTE (0763.HK; 000063.SZ), Samsung, Hisense, Yulong Coolpad, Postcom, and LG. The handsets were developed under China Mobile's TD-SCDMA Terminal R&D Incentive Fund that was launched in March this year. Among the 11 models, 6 were for the high-end "Flagship Broadband Internet Handset" project, while 5 were part of the sub-RMB 1,000 "Low Cost 3G Handset" project.
Under the incentive fund, RMB 307 mln in subsidies were awarded to the six pairs of handset and TD-SCDMA chipset vendors that won bids for the high-end program: Motorola-T3G, Nokia-T3G, Yulong-Leadcore, Dopod-T3G, LG-Leadcore, and ZTE-Leadcore. China Mobile awarded another RMB 292 mln for pairs that won bids in the low-cost program: ZTE-Leadcore, LG-Leadcore, Hisense-Spreadtrum (Nasdaq: SPRD), Postcom-Spreadtrum and Huawei-T3G.
The operator-customized handsets are set to hit the market in succession.
China Mobile president Wang Jianzhou said that at present, 241 TD-SCDMA terminals are available, including 64 handsets.
Editor's Note: An industry source added that China Mobile has determined its subsidy policy for each of the 11 handsets, with the highest receiving RMB 2,000 per unit, and the lowest receiving RMB 600 per unit. However, the source was not forthcoming with details on specific subsidy for each model.
For more background on this topic, please see "China Mobile to Invite Bids for TD-SCDMA Handset Subsidies" MD 3/16/09 issue and "China Mobile Reveals TD-SCDMA Handset Subsidy Bidding Results" MD 5/17/09 issue.
Keywords: operator-customized handset Wang Jianzhou China Mobile Postcom subsidy Samsung Yulong Leadcore handset Spreadtrum Internet Motorola wireless Nokia 000063.SZ 0763.HK Huawei ZTE T3G Coolpad Dopod CHL Hisense LG TD-SCDMA 0941.HK SPRD 600060.SH
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